Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

State Comptroller Alan Hevesi yesterday warned that the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB) is moving much too fast, thus offering another potential brake on the Atlantic Yards project and many others. Though the PACB approved an average of less than half a billion dollars in projects per meeting over the last year, it has rushed through projects totaling $11.4 billion in this month and October, Hevesi said. In December, projects worth several billions more are expected to reach the PACB, which requires unanimity from its three voting members: Governor George Pataki, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. Part of that December total could be related to the Atlantic Yards project, which cannot be voted on until the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) approves the project. The ESDC and developer Forest City Ratner seek rapid approval, under the administration of departing Governor Pataki, while Silver is under pressure to delay the vote a...

Hakeem Jeffries, the newly-elected Assemblyman in the 57 th Assembly District, which includes the site for the proposed Atlantic Yards project, has long spoken carefully about the project, offering support for affordable housing, concern about eminent domain (at least for a basketball arena), and a belief that the project would be too big. Last night, speaking before a meeting of the Fort Greene Association, Jeffries maintained such a cautiously supportive stance. He called for the project to be delayed until the administration of incoming Governor Eliot Spitzer, and said he supported several changes in the project. Such changes, including the idea of a government subsidiary dedicated to overseeing the project, sound much like those proposed by BrooklynSpeaks , the coalition of critics that have staked out a relatively moderate stance that separates them from the Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) coalition. (Given the requirement announced yesterday to revise the Atlantic Yards ...

Yesterday afternoon Empire State Development Corporation Chairman Charles Gargano issued this statement: Shortly after the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) Board of Directors accepted the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Atlantic Yards Project on November 15, I was informed that some comments submitted in response to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) were not included. I immediately directed ESDC staff to conduct a thorough quality control review, which is now underway. All comments inadvertently excluded from the FEIS are being carefully considered. The FEIS will be amended to include the substantive comments that had been omitted and responses to those comments, and re-presented to the ESDC Board for consideration. It is essential that the public comment process be faithfully followed in letter and spirit. How many comments were missed in the six-week rush to produce the FEIS? Unclear. How long will the revision take? Also unclear. But the ...

One of the most detailed responses to the Atlantic Yards Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) charged that the state had downplayed the option of Coney Island as the location for a Brooklyn arena. A report submitted by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn pointed out that the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) had ignored two studies regarding Coney. In the Final EIS, released Wednesday, the ESDC did acknowledge those studies, and the argument for a Coney arena, but mainly to dismiss them. Some of the arguments are worth considering, but others misread the situation. (At right, planned arena location, from 1/31/04 Brooklyn Papers.) In the Project Description chapter of the FEIS, the ESDC states: Two studies published after the 1974 Brooklyn Sports Complex report—a 1984 study authored by the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development (The Brooklyn Sports Study: Phase 1 Locational Analysis) and a 1994 study commissioned by the Brooklyn Sports Foun...

State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver , a Democrat, got into a war of words this weekend with the lame-duck administration of Republican Governor George Pataki, but the news for Brooklynites were his words of steady if not complete support for the Atlantic Yards project--a suggestion that he might want to broker a compromise of sorts. Still, Silver, whose vote on the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB) is necessary to approve Atlantic Yards, may be so peeved at Pataki and Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) Charles Gargano that he will refuse to greenlight the project during the last weeks of the Pataki administration but would rather wait until fellow Democrat Eliot Spitzer takes over in January. "In Brooklyn, it's a mixed bag. There are people for it, people against it, and the proposal itself keeps changing somewhat," Silver said during an interview broadcast this morning on WNBC's News Forum . "So we'll look at it in a very favorable light bec...

The rhetoric of progress is part of any development debate, now and then. Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), last month told the PBS program New York Voices that Atlantic Yards was inevitable: Look, all of these things, we cannot stop progress, stop development. I think what we have to do is to make sure we go through the proper process to assess everything, from an environmental point of view, from a traffic point of view, from every aspect of it-which we are doing. That's the important thing. It doesn't matter whether it is two buildings or 10 buildings. There's always going to be more buildings built in New York City. Thank God. It echoed what Senator Chuck Schumer said in May: "[Borough President] Marty [Markowitz] is taking it on the chin," sympathized Schumer, "from what I call the culture of inertia, this small group of self-appointed people. If we do not grow, we will die." Community Planner Ron Shiffm...

With the release Wednesday of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) regarding Atlantic Yards, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) is preparing to file a legal challenge to deficiencies in the FEIS, a second lawsuit—after a recent eminent domain case—regarding the project. State law requires that the agency conducting the review, in this case the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), take a “hard look” at the environmental impacts. DDDB legal chair Candace Carponter said yesterday that the FEIS fails to adequately explore alternatives to the project or crucial issues like emergency response times for police and fire service. “The part about the traffic is almost a joke,” she added, speaking at a community forum held at the Hanson Place United Methodist Church in Fort Greene. “We believe there are major flaws, because they worked so fast.” The FEIS took only about six weeks to produce. The project is expected to be approved by the ESDC board later this month, then must...

Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) Chairman Charles Gargano took questions from reporters Wednesday after the ESDC certified the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). His most charged comments concerned Moynihan Station, leading to extensive criticism of the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB), which must unanimously approve major projects like the station project--or Atlantic Yards. The board consists of Gov. George Pataki, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (like Pataki, a Republican), and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat. Some people believe that Silver delayed the station project so it can be evaluated under the administration of Govenor-elect Eliot Spitzer, a fellow Democrat. Gargano also confirmed what lawyer George Locker, who represents some rent-regulated tenants in the project footprint, has contended: the “friendly condemnations” on buildings owned by Forest City Ratner would in fact be to remove such tenants. No ESDC official...

Here's how the Atlantic Yards action went at the meeting of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) Wednesday. After first noting some changes in the Atlantic Yards plan, ESDC Director of Planning and Environmental Review Rachel Shatz explained the process regarding the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). "The directors are not being asked at this time for approval of such a project," she said. "The directors are simply being asked to determine that the FEIS is complete, adequately assesses the environmental impacts of the proposed project, and otherwise meets the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act, or SEQRA, and is in proper form for distribution to the public. The directors will be asked at a later date, expected to be in the near future, to make findings required under SEQRA, the UDC [Urban Development Corporation] Act, and the Eminent Domain Procedure Law, or EDPL, and to act on the proposed project." "Before the...

Now that the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) has been released, the question is: will the board of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), nearly all appointees of lame-duck Gov. George Pataki, move the project toward approval before Republican Pataki leaves office for incoming Democrat Eliot Spitzer? ESDC Chairman Charles Gargano, a steady booster of Atlantic Yards, was asked if approval was expected before the end of the year. “I hope so,” he told reporters. He contended that it was unfair to describe the ESDC as trying to rush projects to completion during Pataki’s term. “We’re trying to get projects done,” he said. The ESDC board, after a few short minutes, with no questions, certified the Final EIS, thus setting up a schedule in which they must wait a minimum of ten days before voting to approve it, the associated General Project Plan, and eminent domain findings. Then it would require a unanimous vote from the Public Authorities Control Board (...

Pretty much everyone agrees that, as this photo from the Empire State Development Corporation's Blight Study shows, the Vanderbilt Yard of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority deserves better treatment. But who's responsible? Several people commented to the ESDC, saying government agencies should be blamed for neglect. Among their comments : The MTA didn’t keep up the visual aesthetics of its property. Otherwise the areas surrounding the Atlantic Yards are solidly middle class. The rail yards are not well lit. This is not the result of urban decay but the neglect of the MTA. The DEIS states that street lighting needs improvement. That may be true, but that is a conscious decision by the City of New York, not evidence of decay. Both the City and the MTA have failed to maintain the appearance of the rail yards and have ignored local residents when we requested such attention. That said, we would support the development of the rail yards in a plan that improves, rather than d...

Near the end of the chapter responding to comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, the Empire State Development Corporation organized a series of comments on the charged question of blight. The challenges: The most absurd claim, that the site would remain blighted if the sponsor's project were not built, is disproved by the content of the DEIS itself. This developer and others have clearly identified northern Prospect Heights as an attractive area for new projects. (Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council) Blighted areas have no economic value and little hope of acquiring any. These buildings have value and without this project will acquire more value by private investment, the same way the surrounding neighborhoods have. (Marna Garwood, Brooklyn resident) Two buildings demolished by the developer on Dean Street were appraised by a local realtor as prime renovation opportunities that would have immediately sold for over $1 million each. The DEIS conclusion t...

The Dean Playground on the south side of Dean Street between Sixth and Carlton Avenues would not just be facing some large buildings , it would experience a good deal of construction noise. As stated in the Mitigation chapter of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS): There would be significant adverse noise impacts at the Dean Playground from construction activities. The project sponsors have committed to working with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) to work with DPR’s planned improvements to the Dean Playground. This commitment would partially mitigate a temporary noise impact on the playground due to construction activities. That mitigation also would help make up for a lack of open space. And what might that mitigation be? According to the EIS: The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) currently has plans for the renovation of Dean Playground to include a little league baseball field with artificial turf and some other improvement...

The state environmental review process has some strict boundaries, and one of them involves exactly how the impact of shadows can be assessed. Several people commented to the Empire State Development Corporation that shadows would affect energy bills, deprive solar power rights, and make parks and gardens less pleasant. To which the ESDC responded in the Final Environmental Impact Statement that shadows falling on private spaces is not their business: Shadows on public open spaces including parks are fully described in the EIS. Streets, sidewalks and private backyards are not considered sun-sensitive resources or important natural features according to the CEQR Technical Manual. Further, as noted in previous responses, shadows move during the day, not affecting all portions of a neighborhood all the time. During the spring and summer months in particular, project incremental shadows would be almost completely limited to the Atlantic Avenue corridor for most of the day (midmorning to l...

An influx of 13,500 new residents at the Atlantic Yards full buildout in 2016 would tax the capacity of local schools, and several people, including Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and Mary-Powel Thomas , president of District 15 Community Education Council, have called for a new school to be included in the project. And, according to the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) released today, there's a plan: At the request of the New York City Department of Education (DOE), the project sponsors would convey or lease to DOE space within one of the Phase II development sites (Buildings 5 through 15) for the construction and operation of an approximately 100,000-gross-square-foot (gsf) elementary and intermediate school. Building 5 has been identified as a likely location for the school. (Building 5 would be east of Sixth Avenue below Atlantic Avenue. The school would be part of the DOE's capital plan, which means the city would pay for it. That's typical, thoug...

Borough President Marty Markowitz has called for the tallest building in the Atlantic Yards project, the 620-foot "Miss Brooklyn," be reduced so as not to trump the venerable Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower, which is 512 feet. He hasn't gotten his wish. Unless there's a tactical concession in the wings--and maybe there is--the response in the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) gives as thorough an explanation as possible. The explanation: another sort of tall building could block views, it would be too expensive to move the "Miss Brooklyn" (which has been modified somewhat), and the acknowledged significant adverse impact would be mitigated by new views of Frank Gehry's skyline. (Click to enlarge) According to the FEIS : As stated in the DEIS in Chapter 8, “Urban Design and Visual Resources,” the height, form, and locations of the proposed buildings would obstruct views of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Building from many public vantage points ...